Boredom as a Propositional Attitude: Reading Alberto Moravia with Hegel

This paper brings together the Italian Existentialist author Alberto Moravia’s novel Boredom and Hegel’s account of empirical cognition from the Philosophy of Spirit. I use analysis of Moravia’s text as a jumping off point for arguing that Hegel’s theory of empirical cognition offers a proto-existentialist model for understanding both the complex way in which our political lives intersect with our perceptual lives and the special role that works of imaginative fiction play in bringing this relationship to light. In Boredom, main character Dino is afflicted with a chronic case of the titular condition, which he describes as “a malady affecting external objects and consisting of a withering process; an almost instantaneous loss of vitality.” Using a Hegelian lens, I argue that, in Dino’s case, boredom is not simply a contingent psychological situation; rather, this affect describes a structure of mental intentionality, a propositional attitude, that reflects the political circumstances of 1960s post-Fascist Italy in which he is embedded. I conclude with a discussion of Hegel’s account of imagination that shows how Hegel’s text provides a technical compliment to Moravia’s literary depiction of the political character of perception.